ABSTRACT
Today, students and research workers from Europe, Latin America, and much of Asia go to the United States to become acquainted either with modern scientific trends and the most favorable conditions for research, or with an exceptionally active and varied intellectual and artistic world. This chapter analyzes the changing reality of the relationship between the academic world and society, as it is revealed in its class relations, its value orientations, and its political system. It focuses on how the academic world has gradually become an element of the world of production and social domination. The chapter explains how this progressive integration into the political system has caused the breakdown of the academic self-image, leading many teachers and students to refuse integration into the prevailing practices and ideologies. It traces the development of higher education over the past century, since the founding of the modern colleges and universities in the United States.
